A cornucopia of photos

There is quite a collection of photos on the digicam from the last week or so which document some of our recent eats.

First, we start off with some country ham and biscuits. We really don't have this often at all because it's so salty and fatty. We buy Broadbent Country Ham Biscuit Slices from the farmers market. I fry them up in our large cast iron skillet with a little water to help get rid of some of the salt.

I'm rather afraid to try to make biscuits. I've watched J's grandmother do it several times now, but I'm still afraid. For a while, we were buying the Pillsbury refrigerated single-serving biscuits, but we recently bought the White Lily frozen biscuits. I have to say that the frozen biscuits lacked the consistent light and fluffy texture that we like and also had a not-so-great aftertaste. Despite their store-ability, it's not worth the sacrifice of taste. I suppose it's either back to refrigerated biscuits, or time to learn to make em from scratch.

Mmmm, oysters. The farmers market sells Apalachicola oysters for something like 79 cents a pound. I used to shy away from buying them because I was afraid it would be too expensive, but the batch that featured the oysters you see here was two dozen oysters for something to the tune of $4.50. When you stop to consider that a dozen oysters out will be about $8 on the cheap end, it's certainly a bargain to deal with it at home.

My all-time favorite oysters are BluePoints from NY. Sadly, it seems to be impossible to find these oysters unshucked.


One of our favorite standards is the bone-in pork roast. Somewhat sadly, we've discovered that if we aren't getting Berkshire or Kurobata pork, it's just not good enough to eat with simply s+p. That's when I start cooking the sauerkraut or making baked apples.

Our pork roasts start with grey salt and pepper and then get seared on all sides for a minute each. One side with a massive amount of fat gets a nice two minutes. Once that's seared and pretty all over, it goes in the oven until it reaches the right temperature. You would think I would know the numbers by heart by now, but I have an meat internal temperature guide on the side of the fridge. I think I also reference Julia Child each time too, because she takes it out a bit earlier and there is nothing worse than overcooked meat.

Sunday night, we had good ole fish tacos. As I've mentioned in the past, we choose to use mahi mahi in our fish tacos. We also go with the following toppings: diced white onions, minced cilantro, diced tomatoes, thin red onions slices, green cabbage, guacamole (with cilantro, tomatoes, and onions), and Mexican crema. Here is what my typical fish taco looks like. At the very bottom there is plenty of my favorite chipotle hot sauce.

I also made black beans on Sunday. I forgot to pick up the jalapenos at the market, so Joy of Cooking told me instead of jalapenos, I could toss in some chipotle peppers. Since I actually have some dried chipotles, I tossed them in. It added a nice smokiness. With the crema, these black beans are divine. While I'm not much of a black-beans-in-my-taco eater, I have to say that this photo in particular makes me hungry.